my art diary or how to make (or at least think about making) art while spending quality time with the day job, family, friends & dogs (not in any particular order)

Monday, March 7, 2016

time flies

on february 23 we took the redeye to florida. went to the keys to visit a friend and to beautify her trolley's air conditioner. i have never done this sort of thing and had no idea what to expect. we stopped at home depot & got supplies ( way too much paint & primer, but better that than not enough).

started out thursday by prepping- the interior of this vehicle is beautiful (see it here) and we were very conscious of being careful.

once the prep was done, it was 2 coats of primer & 2 coats of latex base- with 1-4 hours dry time between. i hadn't planned for it to take that long to lay the base down (duh) and was feeling a bit short on time when we got to this point. it already looks better , though.

the first time we visited jeanne, we saw spoonbills flying overhead. got a lesson in how you don't see flamingos in the keys. so i knew i wanted a spoonbill. always good to practice first.

back on the bus and ready to start the mural. i had visions of a nicely graduated water area, which were immediately shot down by how fast the paint was drying in the heat and the fact that even with glaze it just wasn't behaving. panic.

when in doubt, texture. i started "sponging" colors off and on, creating layers. first using paper towels, but the paint was drying so fast they stuck, so i went to plastic bags. once i was satisfied with that, i started on the critters. roseate spoonbill first.

i only got this far on one side- would have liked to have a fuller sea, but it's a start. and jeanne could tell i have a tarpon & a yellowtail, so that made me happy. guess i'll just have to go back & finish the job.

last thing i painted was a raven-

i have started working in the french english dictionary that i bought for this year's vacations. the first 2 images are our portland trip, the next 5 the keys. happy with the conch shell- this is one exercise i rebelled at when i was taking classes years ago. drawing it gave me satisfaction- that i wasn't too scared to try, and that i turned out OK.

the pelican is awful- but this is about practice, so that's OK. i drew the kayak & paddle board on the deck of a sailboat. we had a chance to do a little exploring in biscayne n.p.

home and off again in less than 24 hours, for a training class that had us working 12 hour days- starting with 5 hours on monday evening. here are the journal entries for that trip-

and home for girl's art weekend. i had no time to prep, shop, etc. luckily the rest of the crew had everything well in hand. i ended up bringing journals to play in- couldn't really come up with anything else-

i am now actually home for an entire week and looking forward to getting in the studio to do some bigger work. stay tuned-